Few people know - including most Congressmen - that the management of
73,270,583 acres of the United States, is determined by 34 non-Americans
who are elected by UNESCO. This land - larger than Tennessee and Kentucky
combined - is distributed in 47 U.N. Biosphere Reserves, managed according
to principles and guidelines established by the Man
and the Biosphere International Coordinating Council, and set forth
in the "Seville Strategy", and the "Statutory Framework."

The U.S. Biosphere Reserves are a small part of a global network of 411
similar reserves, which are the starting point for the implementation
of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.

Each Biosphere Reserve consists of a "core wilderness" area,
surrounded by a buffer zone, managed for conservation objectives, both
of which are surrounded by an "outer" buffer zone, also called
a "zone of cooperation." The function of a Biosphere Reserve
is to continually expand, and to eventually "connect" with each
other through "corridors" of wilderness.

The Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve was designated in 1988 as
the 517,000-acre Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Today, the U.N. lists
this reserve as 36,727,139 acres, with the zone of cooperation reaching
from Birmingham, Alabama to Roanoke, Virginia. Neither Congress, nor the
legislatures of any of the affected states, debated or approved the designation
or the management plan.

At the first meeting of the delegates to the Convention on Biological
Diversity, Peter Bridgewater, then-chairman of the MAB Council, offered
the network of Biosphere Reserves as the beginning of implementation for
the Convention. The United States has not ratified this Treaty. Nevertheless,
our land is being managed as if we were a party to the treaty.

The ultimate objective is to convert as much as half of the land area
of the United States to "core wilderness areas," which are off
limits to humans, with government management of most of the remaining
land "for conservation objectives." This leaves only "sustainable
communities" for people, which are described by Science magazine
as "islands of human habitat surrounded by wilderness."

This scenario is not idle speculation. The plan is well documented in
the 1140-page U.N. publication Global Biodiversity Assessment,
which names "The Wildlands Project" as central to the management
scheme required by the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Wildlands
Project, developed by Dr. Reed F. Noss, under contract with The Nature
Conservancy and the Audubon Society, calls for "at least half"
of the lower 48 states to be set aside as wilderness.

Through an incredibly well-orchestrated campaign, hundreds of foundation-funded
so-called environmental organizations, assisted by federal and state agency
personnel are working to see that land is converted to wilderness; corridors
to connect the wilderness areas are developed; and regulations are put
into place to control the use of "buffer zones." Still, there
has been no Congressional debate or approval, of this land management
regime.

Congress has looked only at small segments of the land management regime
in isolation; never at the total picture as described in the Seville Strategy,
The Statutory Framework, The Global Biodiversity Assessment, or
the Wildlands Project. Consequently, the nation's land is being transformed
into a utopian vision conceived by a handful of international socialists.

Just as the nest of environmental extremists have worked to expand the
Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve, another nest is working to expand
"Yellowstone to Yukon," an area that contains several Biosphere
Reserves, and seeks to control all the land between Utah and Alaska.

When the New World Mine was on the brink of satisfying more than $33-million
in permit requirements, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, with assistance
from the Clinton administration, called upon UNESCO to declare Yellowstone
to be "In Danger" and thereby triggered regulatory authority
to stop the mining operation, even though it was on private property.

The Mexico border area is also a hot spot of expansion for U.N. Biosphere
Reserves, including a border region that reaches 62-miles on either side
of the border. A major goal here is to eventually eliminate the border
altogether. Development activity in the region that utilizes federal or
international funds, must be approved by a committee of un-elected environmentalists
and agency bureaucrats.

Environmental extremists think this situation is wonderful. They have
been working for years to achieve this result. Far too few people - including
Congressmen - are even aware of the transformation, and don't want to
be bothered by the evidence. Therefore, day-by-day, our land of the free
is being transformed into the land of government control.